How to Teach Quantum Physics to Your Dog

Product Information

This is an excellent book, despite its quirky, and somewhat cringe-making, style where the author is talking to his dog - and the dog, who is already quite knowledgeable about physics, replies. Certain other parts of this book, like explaining quantum Zeno effect and quantum teleportation, I think, could have been done in a better manner. The book alternates between short conversations with Orzel’s dog, an unusually intelligent animal who wants to use quantum mechanics to catch squirrels and rabbits, and Orzel’s straightforward presentation of the science behind the basic concepts.

On the other hand, the tone is somewhat different from the rest of the book, so this last chapter feels less connected to what comes before. Especially the first chapters were very good, after 50% the book focussed more on the weird universe of quantum teleportation and the measurements done in quantum optics, in line with the professional interest of Chad Orzel.

But the insights of quantum physics tell a story that is simply irreconcilable with this mental picture. My only problem with Emmy (the dog) was that she's clearly smarter than my dog, who really didn't get a thing out of this book. The author uses the literary devise of explaining physics to his dog to make the topic accessible and interesting. In between, it explains Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, the quantum Zeno effect, and even quantum teleportation. Quantum entanglement, quantum teleportation and virtual particles are all explained with the author’s characteristic lighthearted touch.

We would be able to recognise the limitations of language, and in so doing re-define somewhat the idea that we and 'reality' are somehow disparate entities. Accordingly, the state vector is a sort of probability-weighted average of all the allowed states of a 'particle'.Before we try to measure the position, there is a chance that we will find the particle here, there, and everywhere. Turns out we are running into very similar linguistic problems when we adopt the expression 'field' in the hope this would solve the issues. To persuade Chad that she should be allowed to choose both hands she gives him the example of Schrodinger's cat, or in her case Schrodinger's dog.